Radio communication networks are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as telephony, video, data, messaging, broadcasts, and so on. Such communication networks generally support communications for multiple user equipments (UEs) by sharing available network resources. One example of such a network is the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), a third generation (3G) mobile phone technology standardized by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). UMTS includes a definition for a Radio Access Network (RAN), referred to as Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN). The UMTS, which is the successor to Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) technologies, supports various air interface standards, such as Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA), Time Division-Code Division Multiple Access (TD-CDMA), and Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TD-SCDMA). The UMTS also supports enhanced 3G data communications protocols, such as High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), which provides higher data transfer speeds and capacity to associated UMTS networks. As the demand for mobile broadband access continues to increase, research and development continue to advance the UMTS technologies not only to meet the growing demand for mobile broadband access, but to advance and enhance the user experience with wireless communications. For example, UMTS based on WCDMA has been deployed in many places around the world. To ensure that this system remains competitive in the future, 3GPP began a project to define the long-term evolution of UMTS cellular technology. The specifications related to this effort are formally known as Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access (EUTRA) and Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (EUTRAN), but are more commonly referred to by the name Long Term Evolution (LTE).
Transmissions over communication channels are generally subject to errors, for example due to variations in the received signal quality. To some degree, such variations may be counteracted through link adaptation, which deals with how to set transmission parameters of a radio link to handle variations in radio link quality. However, receiver noise and unpredictable interference variations may not be counteracted by link adaptation. Therefore, virtually all wireless communication systems including those described hereinabove employ some form of Forward Error Correction (FEC). Another approach to handle transmission errors is to use Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ). Most modern radio communication networks employ a combination of FEC and ARQ, known as Hybrid ARQ (HARQ). Optionally, hybrid ARQ may also use soft combining. More detailed descriptions of advanced retransmission schemes may be found in literature, such as in chapters 6.3 and 6.4 of the reference book 4G LTE/LTE-Advanced for Mobile Broadband by Erik Dahlman, Stefan Parkvall and Johan Skold, Academic Press, 2011, ISBN: 978-0-12-385489-6.
With the continuing development of radio communication networks, the radio communication networks are getting more and more automated. To this end, Machine Type Communication (MTC) (also known as machine-to-machine communication) has been introduced. One example scenario using MTC may be found in vehicle-to-vehicle communications where autonomous MTC devices of the vehicles communicate their state (e.g. position, velocity, etc.) in order to maintain a safe distance between each other to avoid collisions. This scenario and other future scenarios will typically demand a low communication delay over a communication channel. In turn, this will impose demands on the performance of the communication of messages between transmitters and receivers in terms of low latency.